Steve Schwartz writes:

>...  I still don't know why Levine gets work, and the same goes for
>several others.  Does anybody look forward to Spano's Brahms cycle,
>as good a conductor as he is, when you can get Furtwaengler, Szell,
>Celibidache, Giulini, Horenstein, Markevitch, Kubelik, Stokowski,
>Toscanini, and Walter?...

Amen--though just yesterday, on Bayern 5 Radio, I caught Levine conducting
the Magic Flute at the Met.  A superb performance with a superb cast of
singers, and these mostly in very good form.  Take this as another way
of saying that Levine does seem to remain a major player when it comes
to opera.  As for symphonic music--we had him here in Munich and there's
been little regret over his departure.  His Met performance I tried to
record but experienced an equipment glitch.  Which prompts me to wonder
whether it'd be worth it for record companies to try hawking live
performances of stuff that seems outstandingly promising -- like, say,
the Levine Magic Flute with its all-star cast?  In May there is stuff
scheduled here in Munich and,even more notably, in Berlin that on form
looks like it could knock yer socks off.  (e.g.  Abbado leading the
Berlin Philharmonic in Berg's Seven Early Songs,Renee Fleming!, and
Mahler's 4th).  An idea that's naive commercially?

Denis Fodor